Why you should stop unnecessarily making image posts on the fediverse
cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/58189605
What it looks like:
Here's an example of such a post: https://sh.itjust.works/post/58082125
They uploaded an image and then included a URL as the body/text.
On Lemmy, it looks like an image post, with a small expando to the right of the title that you can click to show the body:
Why you should stop doing it:
- It makes high-quality posts look the same as low-quality ones.
I automatically downvote most image/meme submissions and posts with bad/non-descriptive titles for quality control. Linking directly to a source is how you make a high-quality submission. You can include screenshots or quotes in the body of the post.
I could start clicking the expando next to the title to check if a source was provided, but there's going to be a user option to block image posts in the next lemmy update (v0.20), so that format is not good since lots of people will start to automatically block them.
You can put images in the body of the posts.
Why should anyone care?
Low-quality, easy-to-digest content will dominate and drown out everything else if no one does anything to limit it. It degrades the internet and our brains.
A blog that elaborates:
The Cargo Cult of The Ennui Engine https://medium.com/@max.p.schlienger/the-cargo-cult-of-the-ennui-engine-890c541cebcb
7 replies
You just automatically downvote memes and call it quality control? Interesting.
The vast majority of memes are low-quality.
Couldnt you just block the meme subs and catch 95% of them? That way you aren't manipulating what everyone else sees, or trying to anyway.
Many communities aren't "meme subs", but allow meme/image content. That content then drowns out higher quality content because of how easy it is to digest. So people subscribed to the sub will generally only see low-quality meme content.
There's no built-in way to block all meme-subs. You have to block them individually as you come across them. This is what I do now.
Yeah I know theres no built in way but doom scrolling for 20 minutes on all sorted by scaled will get you most of them. It just seems strange to spend your time downvotinfg every meme you come across when they are so prolific.
This is why the option to block images was implemented. Thus this thread.
Less all that...
The real problem is that picture gets hosted on every instance. Which adds up.
Make the post the link and stop including useless screenshots and it adds up to a lot of freed up storage/bandwidth costs for every instance. And obviously it hurts the smallest I stances the most.